The stock market gained slightly again Wednesday on thin trading, with eyes on the Fed meeting later in the day, which is followed Thursday by second-quarter economic growth figures.
The Philippine Stock Exchange Index added 13.76 points, or 0.2 percent, to 6,236.76 on a value turnover of P3.8 billion. Losers, however, beat gainers 100 to 75, with 41 issues unchanged.
BDO Unibank Inc. of the Sy Group, the biggest lender in terms of assets, advanced 2.6 percent to P117, while Semirara Mining and Power Corp. of the Consjunji Group, the largest coal miner, rose 2 percent to P41.
PLDT Inc., the biggest telecommunications firm, climbed 1.9 percent to P1,649, but Universal Robina Corp. of the Gokongwei Group, the largest snack food maker, fell 3.4 percent to P110.
Asian stocks mostly rose Wednesday, rebounding from an early sell-off thanks to earnings from top US tech giants that eased concerns about consumer demand.
The reports from Wall Street titans including Microsoft and Alphabet helped soothe anxiety ahead of an expected Federal Reserve interest rate hike.
The day started slowly following a steep drop on Wall Street fuelled by concerns that four-decade high inflation and rising borrowing costs were keeping Americans from spending, and pushing the economy towards a recession.
That was backed up by a profit warning by retail titan Walmart and a closely watched consumer confidence gauge sinking for the third month in a row, while the International Monetary Fund slashed its global growth forecasts.
Still, US futures rallied—helping drag much of Asia—after earnings releases from Microsoft and Texas Instruments provided upbeat forecasts, while Google parent Alphabet recorded better-than-expected revenues.
The reports gave a much-needed boost to investors ahead of announcements by Apple, Amazon and Intel.
Dan Morgan, at Synovus Trust, said Alphabet’s results would allow for “a sigh of relief.”
“You’re looking at an environment where the overall ad spend rates are definitely slowing down, yet Google still was able to deliver above and beyond.”
Tokyo, Sydney, Seoul, Singapore, Mumbai, Taipei, Jakarta and Bangkok all rose.
But Hong Kong and Shanghai dropped after enjoying big gains Tuesday.
While equities are enjoying a broadly positive day, there remains a lot of caution about the outlook for markets.
There had been hope that a recent rally across markets indicated the long-running sell-off may have come to an end, and that signs of an economic slowdown could allow the Fed to ease off its tightening by next year and start cutting rates in 2023.
But observers warned there was still a lot of volatility to come as the bank was still hiking, prices were soaring, Russia’s war in Ukraine showed no sign of ending and China was still battling COVID with lockdowns.
“The Fed hasn’t even gotten to neutral yet,” Jason England, of Janus Henderson Investors, told Bloomberg Television.
“For them to start easing already or for them to start seeing eases priced in is, I think, a little premature.” With AFP